Direct service is helping meet the direct and immediate needs of people by providing what they need. Example: food, shelter, money for a light bill, transportation, etc. In addition to the direct benefits to others, service is an opportunity for individuals to build relationships and grow spiritually. As such, reflecting on the service is equally important as the service itself.

Education

Teach-ins, community forums, guest speakers, roundtables, workshops, and skill trainings are all effective forms of education about and around social justice issues. Based on the ideas of Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, popular education is grounded in class consciousness rejects the idea that education can be politically or socially neutral. Popular education models incorporate theory and praxis of antioppression
activism into their pedagogy, modeling the world we want to create in our action to do so.

Organizing

Community organizing is when people come together to build collective power in order to win improvements in their lives and find long-term solutions to their problems. When communities are more organized, they are in more control of what happens to them; they can accomplish more; they can do things more easily. Unitarian Universalists often engage in community organizing within their congregations, building the collective power of the individuals within their church to change their congregation and
larger community for the better.

Advocacy

The roots of the word advocacy have to do with lending assistance, calling for a voice to speak out. Advocacy is a way of raising your voice, speaking on behalf of yourself and those people or causes you stand with. In this case, we use advocacy to mean lobbying and anything else that brings your voice to your elected officials, or to others who change and make policy. Advocacy can include personal lobby visits, phone calls,
emails, letters, or petitions. Group lobby visits are one of the most highly effective forms of advocacy.

Witness

The goal of UU public witness is to increase awareness of Unitarian Universalism as a force for good in the world and promote public awareness around social justice issues. Public witness can come in the form of public events like vigils, direct actions, rallies, or protests; media outreach on local and national issues; and public awareness campaigns using social media.

Knowing Your Community

(From Inspired Faith, Effective Action by the UUA Witness Ministries)

About your community:

Who lives in your community? What are the demographics? Do not assume that you know; do some research. What do people care about? Who is marginalized?

What social justice organizing is already going on?

What relationships does your congregation already have within the community?

What relationships do members of your congregation already have with community members or organizations independent of the congregation? Could a congregational connection be made?

Benefits of Community Partnership

Benefits of community partnerships and coalitions include:

Fitting your work into an existing structure- not re-inventing the wheel! Filling a
niche in the community organizing that may be empty

Strength in numbers!

More people = more hands. More people = more impact

Opportunities for future collaboration on other issues

Doing your work in an accountable way

Bringing different constituencies together

Cross barriers of race, class, sexual orientation and other differences

Work is more effective

Increase community connections

Groups can specialize and take responsibility for different facets of the work

Wider message

Increased opportunities for media

Seeing issues from multiple points of view

Spreading the impact of Unitarian Universalism!

Others?

Retaining Volunteers

Important Steps in RetainingVolunteers

FOLLOW UP: Thank-you, “no show” and reminder calls are all an important part
of keeping volunteers.